The Supreme Court has struck down the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India's (Trai) call-drop regulation calling on telcos to pay consumers penalties for dropped calls. The point is not that the court has given telecom operators a carte blanche to treat call quality the way the Chhattisgarh government treats civil rights groups in the state. Rather, the court has nailed the arbitrariness in the telecom regulator's order. The licence under which operators offer phone services provide for 2% dropped calls, a large multiple of the actual level of call drops experienced and, further, Trai has failed to establish that calls drop only because of operators' deficient conduct. This emphatic disapproval of arbitrariness is most welcome.

Also welcome is recent government action to combat spectrum shortage and consolidate spectrum to provide operators with chunks of contiguous spectrum rather than fragmented bits across the frequency band. The government is also auctioning more spectrum, to remove the ba sic reason for call drops: spectrum shortage. Indian operators service more customers and carry more minutes of call per unit of spectrum given to them and per cell site than their counterparts elsewhere. However, just getting more spectrum is not enough. Having more cell sites and being able to lay cables connecting the sites for backhaul are also important. Irrational fear of radiation leads many people to agitate against telecom towers in their neighbourhood. For right of way to lay cable, greedy municipalities demand treasure of the kind people put away in a Panama account.

Auctioning lower frequency spectrum at reasonable rates is one solution. Fighting radiation scaremongering is another.Besides, try offering municipalities a sliver of telecom revenue by way of right-of-way fees, instead of big upfront fees.

Sponsored Stories

Subscribe ETTelecom Newsletter

“There will be a new brand identity — work has started on it,” a senior consultant working on the merged company’s new identity said, speaking on the condition of anonymity due to non-disclosure agreements.